


The Enemy's Gate is Down

by puella_nerdii



Series: Self-Evident [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Drama, Gen, Minor Violence, Series, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puella_nerdii/pseuds/puella_nerdii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>July 27, 1945, during the Potsdam Conference. <i>"You're going to change everything, America." "Yeah, but isn't that what I always do?"</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Enemy's Gate is Down

_I wanted to go home. So I blew up their planet._   
\- Ender the Xenocide, _Speaker for the Dead_

  
**July 27, 1945**

  
“Fine,” America says, “_fine._” The leather of his jacket swells in the summer heat, sticks to the back of his neck and makes this wet sound when he peels it away. He’s sitting under the biggest window with his chair tipped back on two legs and his head braced against the wall, but he can’t feel any breezes struggling through the windowsill. Whatever, it’s still nowhere near as bad as the South must be right now. And Russia sits across the table from him in his coat and his scarf and his gloves and if _he’s_ sweating America can’t see it, can’t see his skin glisten or his hair droop or his smile waver. Maybe he’s trying to suck every bit of warmth out of this visit that he can so he has something to bring back with him when he goes home, some memory or some trace of the heat, the way the sun weighs, the way the air burns. That’s what Russia does, anyway, he sucks things into himself—people and resources and whole countries—and drains them of everything until they’re just…they’re just these colorless copies of what they used to be, and he’s taken away everything about them that matters, everything that makes them who they are.

He’s taking Poland. Technically he only gets everything east of the Curzon line, but he’s basically taking Poland. _Poland _has_ a government_, America wants to stand up and shout, _and England let them all stay with him while you and Germany broke Poland apart—whoops, sorry, not supposed to talk about that, am I?_ But he doesn’t, and Poland will get turned into some sick little red-clad puppet and America doesn’t even want to think about what Russia’s going to do, what Russia’s been doing to Lithuania, and he’s not allowed to say anything about that or about any of it because Truman told him _we can’t afford to start a war with Russia over this._ And Russia won’t stop smiling, won’t stop fucking smiling.

“Of course, we shall have to give Poland something, too, to thank him.” Russia smiles at England this time; England scowls, but England’s always scowling, especially since he heard about the election. Well, England scowled a lot before that, too, but it’s more pronounced now, and America doesn’t really blame him. He never—but no, he can’t think of Roosevelt in front of Russia, he can’t—he can’t let Russia offer him condolences or anything, he can’t be weak like that.

“Like what?” America asks, crosses his arms over his chest.

Russia pauses for a moment like he has to think about it. Liar. He’s had this all planned out from the beginning. “The territory east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers should be his. That includes Pomerania and Neumark and Silesia, America. And a good deal of East Prussia, as well.”

“I _know_ that,” America snaps. Which he did. (Mostly. Look, it’s not his continent, he can’t be expected to memorize where a bunch of countries are that don’t really even exist anymore.) “And those are Germany’s.” He thinks so, anyway. He turns to England. “They are, aren’t they?”

“He laid claim to them at one point,” England says. “The whole region has been—contested, Silesia in particular.”

“And we do not want Germany’s borders to expand any further, do we?” Russia asks, smiles down at him. Smiles _down_ at him with that big stupid fake smirk like he’s explaining how to add two plus two to a kindergartener. A really slow kindergartener.

“Well, I don’t know,” America says, and slams the front legs of his chair back on the floor. “I don’t think we want yours to, either.”

“The territory will belong to Poland, America.”

“Bullshit.” The cracks in his jacket catch the sweat pouring down his neck, his arms. Christ, would it kill them to put a fan in here? “And what, you’re gonna stay out of Poland after you get that part of him? You’re not going to go after the rest?”

“I want very little for myself,” Russia says, calm as anything. Cool. Cold. (Figures.) “I know the concept is difficult for you to grasp—”

“The only one _grasping_ here is you.”

England’s chair scrapes across the floor. “Hash this out amongst yourselves,” he says through gritted teeth. “I have to welcome my new Prime Minister.”

“Fine.” America’s saying that a lot lately. “Have fun with Attlee.”

England glares at him, swears under his breath—America can’t catch exactly what he says, but he guesses _ungrateful little…_ and _tosser_ are in there somewhere—and slams the door behind him. The sound cracks across the room, but Russia doesn’t flinch, so America won’t either. He does get out of his chair, though, and props himself up against the wall. He’s sick of sitting down all the time: sitting down for conferences, sitting down for treaty signings, sitting down for pictures when he should be out with his boys in the Pacific and ending this thing once and for all.

“The land we shall give to Poland comes from the east of Germany,” Russia says. “It is nothing to do with your zone of occupation.”

“Oh, _my_ zone?” America kicks off from the wall and starts pacing again, wears over the same four floorboards because he doesn’t really want to move any closer to Russia than that. “What happened to all of us being in this together, huh? All of us keeping an eye on Germany so we all make sure he doesn’t do this again, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Russia rises slowly, takes his goddamn time arranging his scarf around his neck and America half-wishes he could reach across the table and throttle him with it, but no, he’s still not allowed to actually do anything. “Is that what _you_ want, America?”

“You think any of us want to work alongside you?” he snaps, and Russia smiles again, and he realizes—damn, that’s what Russia’s been trying to prove all along, but it’s all Russia’s fault, anyway, he and England and France could manage Germany just fine on their own and Russia being there is what ruins it. Because Russia won’t cooperate. So it’s Russia’s fault. It is. “Fine. You know what? Fine. Take the East, take Prussia, take Poland while you’re at it,” _take the entire goddamn world because that’s what you want, isn’t it, you bastard,_ “and run it however you want to and ignore the war going on right below you because that seems to be working out pretty well for you, huh?”

“A-a-ah,” Russia says softly, drawing it out; he circles the table and traces his fingertips along the edge. _He’s saying that it’s his,_ America thinks wildly, his thoughts are flying all over the place and he can’t even say he’s so angry that he’s seeing red, because he’ll never ever _ever_ see that, _he’s drawing a circle and he’s making everything inside it his._ “So you push me away until you need me, yes? That isn’t very nice, America. You cannot treat other nations so, or they will be very angry with you.”

“Shut up.”

“What do you want from me, America?” And Russia leans—leans in and America steps back until he’s pressed against the wall, fuck, not good, and Russia’s still advancing like…like a glacier or something, slow and implacable and inhuman and frozen and even his gloves are cold when Russia’s hands close around his shoulders and pin him. Chilled leather brushes along his collarbone—“I can be very generous, you know.”

“Get your fucking hands off me,” America says through bared teeth.

“If you wanted me to leave you alone,” Russia says, and his breath is warmer than the rest of him, puffing hot on America’s cheek, “you would have pushed me away by now.”

America just glares. Does Russia even know what “personal space” means? Clearly not. He should shove him off, he really should.

He doesn’t.

“What do you want, America?” Russia asks him again.

“You still haven’t said when you’re going to declare war on Japan,” America bites out, just so he can get this whole thing over with. Russia’s fingers are way, way closer to his throat than he wants them to be. Ever.

And Russia taps out a slow beat on America’s neck, over his pulse. “In time, in time.”

“You renounced the neutrality pact thing with him four months ago, come _on._” America twists to the side, but Russia plants his palm right by America’s head and this is sick, this is really sick, this is Russia playing games while America’s boys are still stuck in the Pacific and Japan still won’t back down and America can’t keep doing this. So he says, “Hell, if you wait any longer, there might not be a war left to fight.”

“I will enter the conflict before the invasion is over—”

America looks up at Russia through his glasses, grins and flashes as many of his teeth as he can. “Who said anything about an invasion?”

It’s working. Russia doesn’t shrink back, exactly, he still keeps his hand on the side of America’s head and his other hand tightens on America’s shoulder, but the weird glint in his eyes dims. “You will not invade?”

“Don’t need to.” America jams his thumbs in his belt loops, arches off the wall and thrusts his hips forward the way he used to back in the 1890s when he swaggered around the West. “I’ve got something that’ll end the war for good.” That’ll end all wars for good, maybe. “And Japan can’t stop it,” he finishes. Can’t stop it, can’t block it, can’t do anything about it at all. If Japan’s going to be stubborn, if Japan’s not going to end this on his own and let them all go home, then America will do it for him, and he’ll do it before Japan guts himself for having lost or something. There, let’s see what Russia says about _that._

“Ah,” Russia says again, but it’s shorter this time, clipped. “Of course, any weapon that will bring an end to this conflict is to be welcomed, yes?” His fingers tent against the wall, and his thumb digs into the side of America’s neck, but America just thinks _Good. Good._ Let him keep smiling like that. America knows better now.

“Bet you can’t wait to see what it does,” America can’t resist saying.

“I suppose you shall show us all, will you not?” Russia’s hand creeps closer to his throat—

“What the _hell_—”

“Do you want to see what it does to me, America? Is that what you truly want?” His fingers splay over America’s neck and America hammers his hand away because okay, that’s enough, but Russia catches his fist and pins it to the wall and laughs, high and soft and low, and this is too much, if he doesn’t stop right the fuck now America’s going to—

“This isn’t about you,” America begins, and then the door slams open and Russia lets go, starts to straighten America’s tie for him before America snatches it away, smiles and withdraws.

“Ah, England,” Russia says. “Attlee is well?”

“Well enough,” England replies, narrows his eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Just a chat about policy, that’s all.” The bastard knocked his glasses askew, too, so America straightens them. “I mean, we’ve still got a lot of stuff to work out, right?”

“I won’t deny that,” England says, but those caterpillar eyebrows of his stay furrowed. “Anything I ought to be informed of?”

America shrugs, pulls his jacket back over his shoulders. “Timetables,” he says, glances at Russia, just dares the guy to contradict him. “I can fill you in later. Or now. Whenever you want.”

“The sooner the better.” England looks at Russia, too, and drops his voice. “America, what in the Queen’s name—”

“I think I shall be going,” Russia announces, and how the hell did he get that close? America doesn’t jump or shiver or anything, but _jesus._ It’s not right that someone so big moves so quietly. “I shall tell my boss that you give him your best, yes?”

_Tell him to drop dead,_ America thinks, but he knows better than to say that out loud, so he says, “Sure, sounds good,” instead. He doesn’t let himself exhale until Russia’s well clear of the door, though, clear of the door and down the hall and away from him, thank God.

“Timetables,” England repeats.

“I just asked him when he was planning on throwing his hat into the ring as far as the whole Japan thing goes,” America says. “Has he said anything about the declaration yesterday?”

England shakes his head. “_Mokusatsu_.”

“Mokuwhatsit?”

“To kill with silence. He plans to ignore the ultimatum.”

America sighs and scuffs at the ground. His boots are getting old, old and tattered and torn; white’s showing at the toe, and the rubber soles are peeling away but he’s trying to conserve rubber right now so he hasn’t said anything about it. He wonders why he noticed all this now. “Then we’re going to have to do something he can’t ignore, aren’t we?”

“So it would seem, yes.”

He laces his fingers behind his back, rolls his shoulders, tries to shake the feel of Russia gripping them off. “I know you guys used to be friends and all…”

“Yes,” England says, lips pursed. Right, he’s probably shoving that stick of his even further up his ass right now so he doesn’t say anything more, give anything more away. (_Stiff upper lip_, he used to call it. America said that keeping a stiff upper lip made it really hard to talk. England said yes, that’s part of the reason you keep it.) “What’s your point?”

“You think he’s gonna surrender on his own?”

“No,” England says. It doesn’t take him long to answer. “The concept is antithetical to him.”

“Right,” America says, “right.” He stretches his arms over his head, keeps his back to England. Fuck, he’s tired. He’s not used to being this tired, to his eyes dragging at the corners, to his shoulders sagging, to weighing so much. “So we have to end this.”

“Yes. We do.”

“So—I tested it.” He scratches the back of his neck because he has to do something with his hands, he can’t just let them sit there. “Around when the conference started. It works. It’ll—I think it’ll work.”

“You _think_,” England retorts, and America doesn’t have to turn around to see the color drain from his lips, the white rims form around his nostrils.

“Look, nobody’s ever done this before, all right? I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen—”

“And that alone ought to bloody give you pause,” England cuts in.

America whirls around on his heel and nearly knocks his glasses off in the process. Christ, will everyone just stop? It’s not like he’s—okay, fine, maybe he hasn’t been around as long as a lot of the other countries caught up in this, but you know what, the stuff he’s done so far has worked out pretty well. And the stuff that hasn’t, well, he’s been able to pull himself out of it. Like the Depression. So believe it or not, he does know what he’s doing sometimes. Most of the time, even. It’s just—he hasn’t been a kid for a century and a half, at least, and everyone still acts like he is, acts like he’s not supposed to be mucking around in the big kids’ sandbox. “It did, okay?” he snaps. “I thought about this.”

“Oh did you.”

“_Yes_,” America says. “For months.”

“Because thinking things through hasn’t been a strength of yours in the past.”

“Fine, okay?” He punches the wall because he can’t punch England right now, enough of his supposed allies are pissed off at him and if he picks a fight with England, England of all countries—why doesn’t England get it? “So maybe I don’t know _exactly_ what’s going to happen. But I can guess. And I have as good of a guess as I’m going to get.”

“Where are you going to drop this—thing?” England asks, spits out the last word.

America says, “I’m thinking Hiroshima.”

“Hiroshima?” The windowpanes rattle, and England looks chastened for a second—America tries to remember that look, fix it in his mind, he doesn’t get to see it all that often—before he lowers his voice. “Civilians, America? You’re going to unleash this on civilians?”

“Germany bombed your civilians,” America points out. “And we bombed his right back. Look, stuff’s changed.”

“And has it ever occurred to you that not all change is for the better?” England hisses.

“Well it’s not like I can change it back, is it?” What does England want him to do, gather up all of England’s fairies and ask them if they could pretty please turn time back so all the Allies can smack some sense into Germany and Japan before the start of this whole war? America can’t even see the damn things, he doubts they even exist, it’s probably just England clinging to scraps of that glorious past he’s always rattling on about. You know, if they’d just listened to America at Versailles—but no, they’ll listen to him now but they wouldn’t then, and he can’t reach into the past and shake them or anything. “I mean, what do you want me to do?”

“_Think_, America.”

“I’ve been doing that,” he shoots back. “God, you never listen.”

“This changes things.”

“Yeah, I know. We were just talking about that, remember?” And England says _he’s_ the one who never remembers anything.

“No,” England says, “no. The magnitude of this, America.”

“Blast yield of thirteen to eighteen kilotons, blast wave force of about 5 psi—you want me to keep going?”

“Don’t you dare be glib at a time like this, you sod.”

“I built this thing, England,” he says. “I know what it can do.”

“I recall you saying earlier that you didn’t.”

“Fine. I know what it’s capable of. What kind of stuff it generates. I don’t know what that’ll mean for Japan.”

“Well, perhaps you fucking ought to.”

“Well I _don’t_, okay?” Fuck, it’s all America can do not to seize him by the tie and drag him close and—throttle him. “I’m seriously running out of options here, so if you have another suggestion, tell me. I mean, do you think I—” It’s not his fault, it’s never his fault, it can’t be his fault, no, it’s just that other people push him and push him until he has to do something about it—“I just don’t know what’s left. Okay? I drive him out of the Pacific, he doesn’t surrender. We bring down Germany, he doesn’t surrender. I firebomb him and strike at his shipping and he doesn’t surrender. What else? I mean, what else do I have to do, England?”

“Surrender to _him_,” England pants, “it’s what I did to you.”

And America’s fist slams into England’s jaw, hard enough that it stings afterwards; the force of the blow splits his knuckles and there’s blood, America’s blood, spotting England’s cheek. England staggers back, claps his hand to his face, says nothing.

“Fuck you,” he says, breath ragged. “Fuck you. First of all, I’m _winning._ And after what he did, after what he’s doing…no. What the hell, England,” he adds, “I thought we were in this together.” England signed the declaration with him just yesterday, what the hell does he think he’s doing now?

“I want to make sure you understand what you’re doing,” England says, winces, rubs his jaw. “Shit, that hurt.”

“Then don’t say stupid stuff like that again,” America counters. “And I do understand. Seriously, how can I prove—why don’t you believe me?”

“A land invasion,” England begins, but the fight’s sapped out of his voice.

“Yeah, and then we drag this out another half a year, we have Japan trying to kill himself out of shame, we waste more resources, more lives. We talked about this, remember?” America crosses his arms. “And don’t even talk about changing the terms of the surrender, you came up with like half of them in the first place.”

“I know I did.” England sighs. “I hate that I did, you know.”

“Not your fault,” America says, “you didn’t tell him to try to conquer the world.”

England’s glare could peel paint. Oops. “I mean,” America continues, “we can’t let him do that.”

“No.” England half-slumps against the wall, still cradles his cheek in his hand. “No, you’re right, we can’t.”

_Say _I’m right_ again,_ America almost asks him, but he thinks England’s in a hitting-back mood right now, or at least he’s really close to it and if America said that, he might push England over the line. “Hey, better me than Russia, right?”

And that snaps England back to standing, sends the color flooding back into his cheeks. “You’re doing this to—to—you blinking buggering _idiot_, you’re doing this to show Russia up? Is that it?”

“No!”

England just looks at him.

“…maybe a little. But I have to, okay? I have to warn him before he tries to grab the rest of Eastern Europe.”

“Scaring Russia,” England says, “is _never_ a good plan.”

“Do you have a better one?”

America taps his foot in time with the ticks of the clock hanging on the wall. “No,” England finally says. “Perhaps we do have more to fear from our allies than from our enemies, now.”

“So we agree about that one, at least,” America says.

“Idiot.”

“Huh?”

“Never you mind.” England’s hand leaves his cheek, and he runs it through his hair. “You’re going to change everything, America.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but isn’t that what I always do?”

England—America’s not even sure how England looks at him, except that he does it for a long time, and he keeps his face still, so still, except for this tiny trembling at the corners of his mouth. “Yes,” he says. “I suppose it is.”

“I want—” America sighs, thinks of how to say this. See, he does that. Sometimes. “It’s not that I can’t take this anymore, I can, it’s that I don’t want to. Not more than I have to.”

England rests his knuckles on the windowsill. “I know.”

“Then what’s the—”

“You still have a choice,” England says.

“Yeah.” America can’t force a smile, not quite, it comes out as this weird lopsided grin instead. “And I’ll make it. At least it’s still mine.”

***

**Author's Note:**

> The [](http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0839912.html)Potsdam Conference took place between July 17-August 2, 1945. The Allies, represented by Stalin, Truman, and Churchill (who was replaced by Clement Attlee after his party lost the elections), set up a new system of rule for Germany, one that would theoretically make it one (decentralized and demilitarized) state ruled by four powers but in practice split it between East, governed by the Soviet Union, and West, governed by America, Britain, and France. The atomic bomb was first tested on July 16; during the conference, Truman mentioned that the US possessed [ "a new weapon of unusual destructive force"](http://www.dannen.com/decision/potsdam.html), and Stalin expressed his hope that it would be used to good effect against the Japanese. The [Potsdam Declaration](http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html), issued on July 26, called for the complete and unconditional surrender of Japan; Japan ignored the declaration, and on August 6, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, "Little Boy," on Hiroshima.
> 
> The title is taken from _Ender's Game_ by Orson Scott Card, and if you know the book, you can probably guess why.


End file.
